Chapter 24: Team 447

She'd thrown the rock. She'd looked the thing in whatever it wanted to call eyes and had chucked the stone with more force than she'd thought she could muster. Then, she'd ran.

With little forethought or time for it Dibbuk had slammed her shoulder into the side of the wall at the back of the tunnel. It had shifted after the first one, and come loose after the second. When she was finished frantically pulling herself through the narrow opening and into the chamber beyond, she'd found herself in a stone passage.

She hadn't had time to ponder this in the moment, whatever the voice was it was most likely right behind her. So, she'd ran, and ran, and ran some more. By the time she was done sprinting through a few miles worth of the ancient tunnels she'd looked back and found that nothing was there. Either she'd lost it, or it had never really given chase to begin with. Dibbuk leaned against the stone that lined every inch of the wall.

'What is this all about? Why me? Why Harvel? And where the fuck am I?' She thought, glancing around the dimly lit passageway.

'How far down am I? I've never seen stone work this old.' Dibbuk wondered, running a claw along the side of a seam between two monolith sized bricks. The bricks in the other tunnel were all modern, held together by mortar and with the logos of long dead companies imprinted on them. These had no mortar whatsoever that she could tell.

She could see shapes, like lettering etched into the stone along the edges. They were faint, worn away by ground water seeping through over an indeterminable number of years. She actually thought she could recognize a few if she squinted hard enough. Others though were wholly unfamiliar to her.

'What kind of sewer has inscribed bricks? I've never seen any of this in the books they give us.' She thought, inspecting a few more of the massive bricks between breaths. Once Dibbuk had steadied herself she continued down the tunnel, occasionally stopping to eye the odd brick or two.

She made it maybe a mile or so before she noticed a faint light emanating from around a bend. Cautious not to make too much noise she inched along the wall for the last few feet until she could steal a glance around the corner. She was more than slightly surprised to see a tunnel cart, laying on it's side at the mouth of the passage.

She drew closer, details becoming clearer with every step. It was old, older than any she'd seen in books. In a way it reminded her of Liers suit, iron bands with rivets covering every seam on the outer hull. The light was coming from its forward facing fog lamp, dimly flickering from moment to moment.

It looked like it must have fallen, from where Dibbuk had no way to tell. As she walked around the rear of the cart, she noticed that the wreckage was teetering on the edge of a void. Darkness infinitely stretched out before her in every direction. She shined her emergency light around, failing to find a wall or a ceiling.

Paying close attention to any shift in the cart, she climbed the front end and tried the hatch. At first it wouldn't budge but with a few repeated attempts the rust broke away and she pried the door open far enough to slip in. She lowered herself down into the cabin, careful not to let go until her hind legs were touching the floor.

If Dibbuk hadn't seen plenty of dead bodies by this point in her career she wouldn't have been quite prepared for the numerous ones that lined the walls. Eleven wastewalkers, all of them dressed in suits much like Liers, sat propped upright with blackened rags over what remained of their faces. The "cheese" she had found earlier had broken through the bottom of the cart and was creeping into the cabin, its interlocked tendrils enveloping the legs of the men.

Then, at the end of the row she noticed one particularly large suit. The remains were Tar-Khal. They were small, male perhaps, claws clasped around a data pad. Dibbuk glanced back at the rest of the bodies. He was the only one without a rag.

"Must have been the last one left." She murmured hopefully, slipping the data pad out of the claws of the remains. She looked at the name plate riveted to the collar of the suit. It read: "Captain Shmeelk Botu, Removal Team 447"

'Captain Botu... I've seen that name. He was probably the only Tar-Khal I've ever heard mention of in the walkers. Team 447? Had there ever been that many teams at once? Even with all of the pump stations, and substations combined, right now there couldn't be more than a hundred.' Dibbuk thought as she checked the collars of the other team members. She'd heard that the walkers had significantly downsized over time but had never imagined that it would be by this much.

The data pad didn't have any power, but the image of it's final message seemed to be burned into the screen. Dibbuk wiped the dust from the glass, careful not to scratch the message underneath. If she strained her eyes, she could make out the last bit.

It read: "I have laid them to rest. Though, I mean to join them soon just the same. There is no escape. The bugs have swarmed the cart, most of my boys are dead ---- seemingly run out of food. Gillis told us to eat their bodies. Not doing that.---- knows I-, knew I wouldn' - - - - had a bit of a laugh about that. Can't blame h--- --- passed with a smile."

Dibbuk glanced over at the bodies resting against the wall. She'd checked all the names, there hadn't been one with the name Gillis among them, right? She checked over the name tags once more to be sure. None of the eleven names was anything close to Gillis, ruling out the possibility of a typo.

'There has to be something right?' Dibbuk thought, letting the rag of the eleventh man slip back over his nameplate. As she shook her head in disappointment something caught her eye. Another rag, aged yet still lightly colored, laying among the tendrils.

She followed the tendrils back to the spot where they had broken through the hull. Deep within the tangle the edge of a helmet glinted in the beam of her emergency light. Dibbuk took a moment to reassure herself that whatever was attached was dead before she reached into the mass of tendrils.

She gave the rim of the helmet a light tug, prompting it to come loose in her claws. The helmet was nearly rusted through, the leather strap having rotted away long ago. Putting it to the side, she looked at the spot in the tendrils it had covered. She wished she hadn't.

Gillis was, somehow, still meaty. Dibbuk could only see his head and shoulders at this point but if they were any indication, he was almost perfectly preserved. Dibbuk closed her eyes as she reached down and grabbed the collar of the uniform. Her hopes that the old suit would hold were affirmed as she felt Gillis' body raising a few inches at a time.

As Dibbuk reached further down to get a better grip on Gillis' body, she noticed something she hadn't earlier. This Gillis, was a woman. Cautious not to rip the rest of the suit she managed to pull the body about three fourths of the way out of the tangle. She would have pulled further but Gillis' legs were somewhat fused to the tendrils.

With the top half of the body now slumped over the edge of the mass of tendrils, Dibbuk could take a closer look at the name plate. She wiped away a greenish residue with her thumb and read it.

"Sr. Engineer Blaithin Gillis, Removal Team 447"

"I'm not even going to attempt to pronounce that. So, you're Harvels great great aunt or something?" Dibbuk wondered aloud, eyeing the corpse. Though she wasn't the best judge when it came to human faces, this Gillis didn't look much like Harvel. For starters a large portion of her head was missing.

Dibbuk noticed a necklace with some sort of metal pendant, wrapped around the corpses chin. Hooking a claw around it she leaned in to have a better look. There were letters stamped into the lightly rusted metal.

"I descend now, from soil inert, to shape and move the peoples dirt.

Through rivers yellow, and mountains brown

I walk and wade, my helmet a crown.

If below the streets I stay, those above shall know my name.

If they happen to forget, then may they drown in their own shit."

'A bit crude, but then again most walkers are. She is like Harvel in that regard I guess.' Dibbuk thought, staring into the corpses face. There was something there, in the murky eyes that stared back at her. Almost like they were...

"Mooooviiing!" Dibbuk cried, losing her balance and falling backwards onto her tail end. The corpse blinked slowly. It's head turned a bit to face Dibbuk, though the eyes seemed to be looking past her.

'Botu? No... not Botu... Botu is...'

"Are you- Are you alive still? Can you hear me?" Dibbuk asked, recognizing the sound of projected thoughts.

'Dead... Alive? I... was... I might be. Who are you?'

"Family, I suppose. In a way." She answered solemnly.

'We all are, in a way. That's what Shme-... what Botu used to say.'

"That's not quite what I meant. Look, my brother, he's a Gillis, like you. He's-" Dibbuk glanced down at the mass of tendrils, "A lot like you, from what I've heard." She finished.

'Spoken... to the monkey... have you? He lies... you know. He lies. He told me... he could bring them back... If I tried hard enough... I could bring them back... Lies I wanted to believe. Just another experiment to him.'

"An experiment?" Dibbuk asked, following Blaithins eyes, now resting sadly on Botus body.

'To know how long to wait... for a new spore to form.'

"A new spore? What does that have to do with my brother?" Dibbuk asked, hearing the strength leaving Blaithins mind.

'Might be the next one... he's cut me off... since I failed... If he is... then your brother, and you... are in danger... He'll do anything... to take him over.'

"You mean this monkey person right? I didn't know monkeys could talk." Dibbuk asked, trying to keep the womans attention.

'Heh... yeah... not a monkey... sorry... that's what... the old spore called him... before he cut me off...'

"What? Old spore? Wait, then who's monkey?" Dibbuk responded, drawing closer. She could hear the mental voice growing weaker.

'We... knew him as Mahone... in our day... The great founder... or one of them... I can't... tired... so tired...'

Dibbuk watched as Blaithins body began slumping slowly back into the tangle of roots. Dibbuk took a chance at one last question. "Why does he want the new spore? Why does Mahone want my brother?" She asked, leaning down into the hole.

'The old spore... is dying... wants to die... Mahone wants to evolve... Thinks the spore is the key... Thinks It'll make him immortal... He might just be right... Almost worked for me... Almost...'

With that final lament Dibbuk felt the mental voice fade entirely. The corpse stopped blinking and became dormant once again among the tangle of tendrils. Dibbuk pulled her head back from the hole and sat up on her hind legs. She didn't really know what to think. She sighed.

'This is all a bit too much... What am I even supposed to do here? I figured the voice had lied to me somehow but like this? I was expecting ghosts and demons and such. Not some sort of disembodied billionaire. All I want is to go home.' Dibbuk thought, slumping down next to the remains of captain Botu.

She stared at the hole. Was Harvel going to end up like that too? Trapped in some sort of moldy cocoon for all eternity? It seemed like hell on Liberum in her eyes.

As she contemplated all of the new information she'd learned a "Plink!" came from behind her back. Then another, and another, then hundreds more little knocks began to hit the side of the cart. Something Botu had written down came screaming back into the forefront of Dibbuks mind. "The bugs have swarmed the cart."

"Shit..."